USAF Plane Breaks Hypersonic Flight Record

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The United States Air Force’s X-51A Waverider, an experimental aircraft, has set a new record for hypersonic flight: Mach 6.

The craft flew at six times the speed of sound for three minutes and 20 seconds, according to the Associated Press. A B-52 Stratofortress released the X-51A Waverider off the southern California coast on Wednesday, whereupon the craft’s scramjet engine accelerated it to Mach 6.

“We are ecstatic to have accomplished many of the X-51A test points during its first hypersonic mission,” said Charlie Brink, an X-51A program manager with the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, in the article. “We equate this leap in engine technology as equivalent to the post-World War II jump from propeller-driven aircraft to jet engines.”

The previous record for a hypersonic scramjet burn was just 12 seconds, according to the report. (Rendered image credit: USAF)